Winter garden in SoCal

While most of the country is mired in rain or snow, it's gardening season here in SoCal.  I finally found some time to get out in the garden this afternoon, planting garlic and shallots.  I have a bunch more cool season stuff to plant , but it will have to wait for next weekend.

While I was outside, I decided to take a few pictures.  Here's a winter tour of my backyard:

My peach tree is blooming!  We got this tree last year, free from our favorite nursery.  Yes, you read that right--free!  It had some wind damage, so they were going to throw it out but gave it to us instead.  Isn't it pretty all dressed up in pink and white?  Too bad there aren't debutante balls for trees :-)



And here are a couple of closeups of its frilly finery:




While the peach tree is blooming, the citrus trees are bearing!  Navel oranges, anyone?


Now for some more flowers.  First, a sunflower planted by a helpful bird.  There's something wonderful about a sunflower blooming in January!


Our house's previous owners planted this Cup of Gold Vine along a pathway in our backyard.  It must be at least 20 years old, and it blooms from January to about April.  The blossoms are really cool looking; see?


Last spring I planted nasturtiums in my vegetable beds, and they reseeded for some winter color.  I love it when plants plant themselves!


And finally, here's another plant that reseeded itself -- borage:


This is the second generation, and there are some third-generation seedlings too (you can see some in the lower right corner of the photo).  Three seasons of borage!  Now if I just knew what to do with the stuff...

So there you go - winter gardening in SoCal.  There's something wonderful about being able to dig in the dirt in January without needing hip waders.

New yumminess: persimmon jam

While the rest of the country was watching parades and football games, I spent yesterday making jam from a big batch of persimmons given to me by a coworker.  This was my first time making persimmon jam, but I think I'm in love.  It's heavenly!

It also required some research.  If you Google "persimmon jam recipes," you'll find lots, but nearly all of them end with, "ladle into jars and seal according to manufacturer's directions."  There's nothing about processing them, and since I don't want to give my family botulism, I don't do unprocessed jams.  There are a few freezer jam recipes out there too, but my freezer is full of pureed pumpkin (more on that in another post), so that wasn't high on my list either.  Finally, after an hour or so of digging, I found an old article from Sunset on preserving persimmons, and the mystery was solved.  Apparently, the astringent varieties can't be cooked very long, or they become bitter, so canned jams aren't an option.  Fortunately for me, my giant pile o' persimmons were all Fuyu, a nonastringent variety that can be cooked.  So I was back in the jam business.

I followed the recipe in the Sunset article, using powdered pectin (the recipe calls for either liquid or powdered).  I had some trouble with the "skim off foam" step though.  The entire pan of jam was foamy!  I tried skimming off a layer, but it didn't seem to make any difference.  The results were delicious, but the contents of the jars look a little foamy, and there's a clear jelly at the bottom.  Next time (and, in the immortal words of Joe Elliott, there will be a next time) I'll try liquid pectin to see if that improves the consistency and appearance.  I don't think anything could improve the taste, though.  Persimmon jam is my new favorite jam.  Yum!

Then and now

Last time I posted, it was raining buckets, and I was whining (hey, it's my blog--I'll whine if I want to).  Now that spring is in full flower, I'm no longer whining; I'm sneezing.  But more importantly, my garden is flourishing, so in addition to sneezing, I'm bragging (hey, it's my blog--I'll brag if I want to).  Here's what my backyard looked like back in November:



And here's what it looks like now:







There's been progress in the front yard too.  Here's a pic from last summer:

And here's what it looks like now:



It still needs a lot of work, but at least it isn't a scruffy slab o' grass anymore.

Here are few more. This is a Japanese maple:


And here's one of the roses we got from our neighbor across the street:


And the cymbidiums we got from the neighbors across the street:




And one that I bought for way too much money from a woman that lives near here:





So, we're making progress!  It's fun to watch a boring yard transform into a garden--but it takes a lot of work (and money--*sigh*) to make it happen.

Eddie Rabbit was nuts

Well, I love a rainy night
It's such a beautiful sight
I love to feel the rain
On my face
Taste the rain on my lips

Eddie Rabbit was nuts.

When I moved down here to the land of sun and smog, I figured the title of this blog would be a remnant of my former life as an Oregonian.  Today, though, it has been raining buckets.  I think there are some ducks moving into the lake that is now my front yard, and I'm pretty sure I saw some people whitewater rafting down the side of the street.

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating... a bit.  I'm just irritated at the timing.  We have a visitor from up north, who is spending his spring break with us, and I'm taking this week off from work, my first week off since I started my new job last spring.  So, of course, SoCal has to do its Portland impression.  Really, I wasn't homesick for Oregon.  So, rain, you can go back up north.  Now.

In the meantime, I'm reduced to looking at my many outdoor projects through the window or in pictures. The pic in this post is of the first area I planted after we moved in last summer.  I cleared a bit of lawn just outside the back door for a salad garden.  As of last week, the romaine was looking great, the beets and onions were coming along nicely, the chard was attempting to take over the universe, and the parsley was starting to bloom.  Now it's probably under water, but I'll hold a good thought.

Our current project is landscaping the front yard.  When we bought the place, it looked like this:

It had some scruffy-looking grass, a giant bird of paradise that covered most of the front window, and that's about it.  A few weeks ago we (by "we" I mean my long-suffering husband) removed the grass, and last week "we" started putting up a picket fence and arbor and mapping out paths to turn the slab o' nothing into a cottage garden.  But that means that right now, the front yard is bare dirt.  Well, it was bare dirt yesterday.  Now it's a mud pit suitable for large trucks or bikini-clad wrestlers, with a lake where the path is supposed to go.  I'd post a picture, but I'm not going out there without scuba gear or an ark.

I love being able to garden in December

While winter closes in on much of the rest of the country, it's fall here in SoCal.  The maples are beautiful shades of red and orange, leaves are falling, and it was sunny and 77 degrees today.  So, after doing a bit of Christmas shopping in the morning, I spent all afternoon gardening.  Here's today's list of accomplishments:

• Scored two garbage cans full of grass clippings from my neighbor.  He looked at me like I was insane when I asked if I could have them.  I tried to explain that I needed them for my compost pile, and they would make my vegetables grow better.  He still looked at me like I was insane.  He handed over the clippings, though, so I don't care if he thinks I'm nuts.  Now my compost bin is full, and I've started a new pile with one can of clippings and a pile of newly-raked leaves.  Happiness is a full compost bin.
• Planted some cool-season veggies: 
• Scallions - "Delicious duo" red and green scallion seeds from Renee's Garden Seeds
• Spinach - unknown variety given to me by someone on Glendora Freecycle
• Beets - "Detroit Dark Red"
• Radishes - "Crimson Giant," also courtesy of a Glendora Freecycler  
• Cleaned up some debris left in the yard by the previous owners
• Put a ring of stones around one of our orange trees

Now I'm resting a bit before date night at Disneyland with my husband.  What a wonderful Saturday!

Some progress in the new garden

The blank slate backyard is a little less blank now, thanks mostly to hubby.  He widened a path and built four 16x4' raised beds (yay hubby!), and we filled two of the beds with soil this weekend.  Here's the latest pic:


I've also planted a few cool-season veggies elsewhere in the yard--some lettuce, chard, and garlic in a small bed near the house, and some "Melting Sugar" snow peas along a trellis/fence by Mom's cottage.  I planted the peas in late October, and they're coming along nicely:


It's wonderful to be able to garden this late in the year!  

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

No, I'm not dead, though moving has been the death of my blogging, at least for awhile.  Last April I moved from Portland to Southern California, trading rain, mud, and slugs for sunshine, scorched earth, and more slugs, plus some snails to keep them company (and black widows, cockroaches the size of carthorses, June bugs, and who knows what else that I haven't discovered yet).  Despite my many multilegged adversaries, I love the sun and warmth down here.

We were lucky to find a house with a larger than average yard, so I have room for some new gardening adventures.  The yard is mostly a blank slate, lots of weedy grass with a few trees and shrubs, including 5 (!) citrus trees (yay!).  Here are a few pics:

Blank slate backyard:


Northwest corner of the backyard.  The tree on the right is either an orange or a tangerine (or some other citrus-y object that resembles an orange).


Now I just have to learn how to garden in this alien environment.  Though I'm a native Californian, I grew up in Northern California, where it's a bit cooler, at least in the winter.  And, I was a typical kid, much more interested in music, guys, cars, guys, friends, guys, sleeping late, and guys, than I was in learning how to grow stuff.  Gardening was something old people like my mom and grandpa droned on about for hours while I watched MTV.  Needless to say, I didn't learn much about California gardening, so I'm starting over as a novice.  After 14 years in cool, wet Portland, I feel like I'm gardening on another planet.  Here are a few of my observations as a stranger in a strange (but wonderfully warm and sunny) land:

• Citrus trees grow in the ground here, as God intended.  No more hauling potted lemon trees into the greenhouse in September and trying to keep them alive through a Portland winter. 
• Bougainvillea, an exotic tropical that I tried (and failed) to grow in my greenhouse in Portland, is a huge, mutant, thorny thing down here.  If you turn your back on it for 5 minutes, it will eat your house.
• Summer is the dead season for gardening in SoCal, as it's too hot to do much (besides watering... all the time), and new plantings are likely to shrivel in the heat.  Now, though, is prime planting time, especially for cool-season stuff like lettuce and onions that I would have planted in March back in Portland. 
• And speaking of climate differences, I still can't get used to how warm it is here.  Granted, this has been a weird weather year all over, but we had a 100-degree day in early November!  Huh?  My poor lettuce was so confused.  
• You'd think that with the hot, dry climate, people would mulch down here.  But you would be wrong.  Even in professionally-tended landscapes, I see bare dirt in the planting beds.  Not me.  I'm going to pile a few inches of fall leaves (assuming the leaves actually fall... they haven't yet) on everything, so I don't have to water every 10 minutes next summer. 

Farewell for now, and to all of you readers with gardens covered in snow and ice or swampy with rain... It was sunny and 70 here today.  Neener, neener, neener!

Man Eating Plants, And Lovin' It.

Just to tide everybody over while I work on a much longer and FAR less entertaining post to mark my return to this blog after at least a year off (sorry about that -- I'll explain later), I wanted to share this amazing set of photographs from the March issue of National Geographic -- marking their first article ever on carnivorous plants!

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/03/carnivorous-plants/schmitz-photography

Wow, stunning! But, hey, don't be fooled; that's how they work, people. They look so pretty and nice, and so you bend over and pinch their little cheeks as you say cheerfully, "Golly, you amazing, sweet, colorful thing, how are you today?" and then the minute your head gets down close enough, CHOMP! There goes your face! I've seen Little Shop of Horrors, you're not fooling me with those classy good looks, Audrey.

After you view the photographs, don't forget to read the article itself, which is also utterly fascinating! I remember having Venus fly traps as a kid and being completely enthralled by they way they worked, but I haven't owned a carnivorous plant since. Might be time to seek some out. Are there any that grow well outside in the Pacific Northwest?

Nature, you amaze me. Keep on keepin' on with that.

Hope is on the horizon

Here on the rainy side of the Pacific Northwest, January is a dark, dreary month.  The days are still short, and clouds and rain are near-constants.  Most of my gardening this time of year is of the armchair variety--poring over seed catalogs, reading back issues of garden magazines, and imagining the perfect garden that will, of course, never exist.  We had a rare sunny winter day yesterday, though, so I was able to weed two large flowerbeds and plant some poppy seeds.  I also spent a few minutes outside with my camera.  My yard seems nearly barren except for the evergreen trees, shrubs, and ferns, and spring seems a long way off.  If I look closer, however, I see the first signs of spring.  Here--let me show you:

Hellebores are the earliest-blooming plants in my garden.  It's such a delight to see some color on these dark days. 




The vegetable garden isn't a complete wasteland.  Here's some garlic, along with a couple of winter weeds I was too lazy to pull:


Continuing with the edibles, both the red and green rhubarb are breaking ground:




The woodland garden is beautiful even in winter, because the sword ferns look fresh and green:


I don't know what those mysterious red berries are.  They grow on wild vines that I keep mostly pulled, but I let a few stay so I can enjoy the berries in winter.  Here's a closeup:


And then there are the spring bulbs.  Daffodils and Spanish bluebells are just starting to break ground:


And finally, filbert catkins grace the winter landscape:


It's still winter, but the days are getting longer, and the first plants of spring are pushing sleepily through the sodden soil.  Hope is on the horizon...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone out there a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I hope Santa brings y'all lots of cool garden-related gifts.  Today I got one of the best gifts a Northwest gardener can get--sunshine!  I celebrated by spending about an hour weeding my front yard.  Christmas Eve was a bad day for the crabgrass.

Happy Holidays!

Armchair gardening with a little help from NPR

The winter solstice is almost upon us, so it's dark, cold, and if you're here in the rainy part of the Pacific Northwest, wet. My socks get soggy if I even think of going outside, so I'm turning my thoughts to indoor pursuits--like reading. Fortunately, NPR just posted 2009's Crop of Great Gardening Books - how very timely. All of these look interesting, but my first choice is the last one on the list, Amy Stewart's Wicked Plants.



I've often thought of designing a garden containing nothing but poisonous plants, so this one is right up my alley.

Anyone else out there in blog-land have some favorite gardening books to recommend? 'Tis the season for some armchair gardening.

How to Ripen Green Tomatoes

I dread the end of the growing season for many reasons, but near the top of the list is that it's the end of fresh tomato season. Unless you've a) had frost already, or b) are sufficiently ahead of the game that you have already removed your tomato plants and cleaned up your tomato garden (and if you have: stop it! - you're making the rest of us look bad), there's still hope for at least some of your remaining tomatoes. This is the time of year when people post lots of green tomato recipes--chow chow, fried green tomatoes (at the Whistlestop Cafe even), green tomato pie, green tomato ketchup, and heaven only knows what else. But I'll share a dirty little culinary secret with you: green tomatoes don't taste very good. Instead of disguising them in pies or breading and attempting to sneak them down the throats of your unsuspecting family members, I suggest you ripen your green tomatoes indoors. They won't taste as good as vine-ripened tomatoes, but they'll taste better than those mushy red abominations you find in the grocery store.

Here's what to do:

1. Pick all your green tomatoes that look remotely mature and are in good shape. They should have something close to their mature shape, be somewhat close to their mature size, and not have bruises, soft spots, insect damage, or other major yucky spots.

2. Rinse or wipe them off.

3. Put them in in a single layer in some kind of container and cover them to keep out fruit flies and other pests. I use paper shopping bags. I put a layer of tomatoes in the bottom, fold the tops down to keep out pests, and put the bags in plastic trays to keep any tomato guts from dripping onto the carpet.

4. Store them somewhere dry and warm (warm as in room temperature, not warm as in Mojave Desert in August). According to a Wikipedia article, tomatoes stop ripening when the temperature drops below 54.5 °F (12.5 °C).

5. Check them regularly, removing any that are a) ripe or b) nasty. I check mine each week.

This method has worked well for me for years. Sometimes I still have fresh tomatoes at Thanksgiving, and I don't have to coerce my defenseless family into eating green tomatoes. What's not to love?

Heirloom apples

I've heard of heirloom tomatoes, heirloom melons, and heirloom squash, but until recently I'd never heard of heirloom apples. Like everyone else, I read The Botany of Desire a few years ago, but somehow I didn't think about the fact that there must be lots of old varieties of apples, since apples have been in cultivation for many centuries. Then I heard about an heirloom apple tasting in Venersborg, WA, last Saturday, and decided to do some research. According to an article on the Slow Food USA site, over 500 varieties of apples were cultivated in the US by 1850, yet only a handful are grown commercially now. Much like tomatoes, commercial varieties are often selected for appearance and durability in shipping rather than taste. Veggie Gardening Tips posted two articles on heirloom apples: Heirloom Apples and Antique Apple Varieties. The Washington State University Clark County Extension site also offers a great article on heirloom apples.

We couldn't make it to the apple tasting, but Jacqueline at Friendly Haven Rise Farm, who sponsored the tasting, invited us up to visit their farm and purchase some heirloom apple trees. The trees they sell come from an older gentleman who grows over 1000 (!!) varieties of apples, including several that even Google had never heard of. We had a lovely visit, brought home a couple of trees, and look forward to growing our own heirloom apples. If you'd like to do the same and you're within driving distance of Southwest Washington, I suggest you call the good folks at Friendly Haven Rise Farm to see if they have some trees left. You might also check out the heirloom apple tasting in Parkdale, OR, this weekend. If you're out of the area, try Trees of Antiquity, which seems to have a good selection (note: I've never done business with them, so I can't vouch for anything other than the impressive list of varieties on their web site). You too can grow your own little piece of history--a delicious little piece that will taste great in a pie.

Hmm... that last sentence should net me some interesting referral traffic. It might even compete with the infamous deer anus post on my personal blog.

Tracking climate change in your own backyard

Want to help track climate change? Sign up to be a Citizen Scientist with the National Phenology Network! Choose one or more plants that a) is on their list, and b) grows in your yard (or somewhere you hang out regularly), then use their tools and instructions to report on its growth. Sounds like a fun project for homeschoolers or, really, anyone with kids. Links and more information available from a Wilderness Society blog post.